CompleteMartialArts.com - Chinese Martial Arts Training Manuals: A Historical Survey
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Manufacturer: North Atlantic Books
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 796.80951 EAN: 9781556435577 ISBN: 1556435576 Label: North Atlantic Books Manufacturer: North Atlantic Books Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 225 Publication Date: 2005-07-10 Publisher: North Atlantic Books Release Date: 2005-11-11 Studio: North Atlantic Books
Chinese martial arts masters of the past created special training manuals with text and images—sometimes appearing in the illustrations themselves—and these manuals now provide an invaluable glimpse back in time that allow readers to see how various martial arts were practiced. Covering the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, and the Republican Period, this in-depth survey presents 30 masters and their books, placing them in the context of Chinese culture and history. Along with biographical portraits of these masters, the book covers the history of the manuals, Chinese martial arts historians, the history of Taiwanese martial arts, how Chinese martial artists made their livings, the Imperial military exams, the place of the Shaolin Temple in Chinese martial arts history, and much more. Illustrated with hundreds of photographs and drawings from the manuals themselves, the book offers a multifaceted portrait of Chinese martial arts and their place in Chinese culture.
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Refreshing Comment: This book is a relief in todays world of Martial Arts liars, thieves, and charlatans. With a field that fosters making claims of magic and mystical powers, or in the least allowing the students or practitioners to go unfettered and run rampant with thoughts of Hollywood, Hong Kong, or Wu Xia Kung Fu this is a breath of fresh air. If you want solid groundwork for dispelling the myths and mysticisms of Chinese Martial Arts then this is the book for you. Well researched and full of great references, Mr. Kennedy offers an oft-times 'no holds barred' spotlight on an industry, sub-culture, phenomenon that has thrived in the shadows for too long. It's about time a book like this was published! Customer Rating: Summary: A book for every teacher who wants to go beyond the legends Comment: It happens people think this book is the summa of the Chinese Kung Fu Manuals. Wrong.
This book analyzes the huge work done in Taiwan from the Lion pub on reissuing old CMA manuals in their original print. Some of them are today also available in English thanks to Tim Cartmell. The high value of this book is on analyzing the history and development of CMA by using documentation and not legends. The high value of this book is to tell the story of CMA historians as well as CMA master and famous people.
The way they lived, the way the got money...
Then the authors go trough the several manual by analyzing the content related to the time and environment when they were published.
Also exciting is the analysis of the different manual organization and the didactics related to the books: form the "hammering the back" body conditioning to the first schedule for drills. This book enlightens a reality a lot of practitioners wouldn't like to see by making more human and real. A book I find very exciting to read and I strongly advice to every western master who seriously want to know something more than legends about the CMA.
Customer Rating: Summary: For people who prefer reading to fighting Comment: If you're mostly interested in the practice of martial arts, this book will be of only marginal value.*
If you find books about martial arts, and the history of their development, intrinsically interesting, then this is your book.
* (There is one exception: The off-hand revelation at the very end of the last page regarding the hand techniques of western boxing. I was stunned!) Customer Rating: Summary: Interesting but too short and incomplete. Comment: Fairly interesting introduction of various literary works of Ming dynasty to republican-era martial artists, which include short bios as well as fairly rare photographs. However the book seem too short and much less comprehensive than it could've been, concerning how vast the subject is. What could've been nice would be including selected direct translations of the various texts that was showcased.
More disapointedly was the lack of attention paid to southern Chinese systems compared to the Northern/Internal systems. Only a mere 2 pages or so are given to Hung Gar's Lam Sai Wing, the only representation of the southern Chinese martial arts in the whole book. Customer Rating: Summary: Good, but not great. Comment: This book is a must have for anyone with an interest in Chinese martial arts. There is a lot of good information here, some good stories, and some great pictures. Unfortunately, this book is also very frustrating. It has all the great things just mentioned, and it takes the genre of English-language books on Chinese martial arts history in a welcome departure from the usual. However, the book presents itself as almost academic, and in this aspiration it falls on its face. The call for scholarship in martial arts writing is well received by this reader, but the authors do not set an inspiring example. One glaring omission is the complete lack of citation. There is not even a bibliography, despite the fact that the bulk of the work is a series of book reviews. This lack of citation is frustrating for one who would be interested in further inquiry. The presentation therefore fails as academic, and rests in the "wanna-be" category. Better editing -- in English and in ESPECIALLY IN THEIR USE OF PINYIN -- would also help this otherwise rare example of a commendable book on this fantastic subject.
